Ditchburn: Renovating Parliament Hill's Centre Block – why is no one talking about this huge project?

By the end of 2018, when the Christmas lights are twinkling around Parliament Hill, the doors to Centre Block will close for at least a decade of sorely needed rehabilitation. You could get elected as an MP in 2019 and never work there, depending on your political lifespan.

It’s a beloved building for those who have had the privilege of working there, but we’ve missed the forest for the trees on this looming project. There seems to have been precious little public or parliamentary scrutiny of what exactly is going to happen when the doors close and the renovation work begins, and I mean beyond the usual questions around the costs and time frames.

Distroscale

A review of Board of Internal Economy meetings and other parliamentary committees over several years suggests that parliamentarians have been mostly concerned with their impending displacement to other buildings, acoustics, and the design of the desks and chairs. They don’t seem to have been asking the larger questions around what the overarching priorities should be for the Centre Block rehabilitation — at least not in any serious way — over the past two decades.

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The more practical of these questions include: Will the building be made more accessible to the disabled? Will it will be more family- and women-friendly and environmentally sustainable? Will current public and media access be protected or even enhanced?

And there are more challenging questions, which I acknowledge might sound like heresy. For example, do we even want the House of Commons to be configured the same way when the MPs get back? Has anyone ever considered whether other designs, such as the horseshoe shape used in Australia and Scotland, might work better?

Meanwhile, the public has been largely absent from the conversation — a curious fact in an age when governments are worried about alienating citizens.

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The plan, for now, is for crews to get inside the building and then to conduct an “investigative program” involving opening walls, ceilings and floors to get a picture of the condition of the place. Of course, since the building is a designated historic space, much will need to be protected.

Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), the official custodian of the parliamentary buildings, told me that the project is “in the initial stages of schematic design.” Decisions on such things as the design of the House of Commons and the Senate, and what spaces will be set aside for the media, have not yet been made.

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The public has been largely absent from the conversation — a curious fact in an age when governments are worried about alienating citizens.

Liberal MP Larry Bagnell, chair of the Procedure and House Affairs Committee (PROC), raised the lack of consultation over the Centre Block renovation during a committee meeting in 2016. He worried that committee spaces might disappear in Centre Block, and noted that even though he’s been on the Hill since 2004, he hadn’t been asked for his opinion on the new design of the West Block chamber.

“I don’t remember ever being consulted as a backbencher MP on these things, not to have any veto or anything, but at least to put in comments. It is our workplace,” Bagnell said.

That might be because the last time that the House of Commons sent comprehensive, detailed direction on what it wanted for the parliamentary precinct was in 1999 in the “Building the Future“ report. Since then, direct and publicly available instructions from Parliament have been more piecemeal. For example, PROC this year recommended to the government that a family room be established in the future in the renovated Centre Block and that an outdoor play area be created nearby.

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A detail from one of the columns inside Centre Block.Tony Caldwell

Meanwhile, PSPC’s Long-Term Vision and Plan for the parliamentary precinct rehabilitation was last updated 12 years ago, with approval by the Commons’ Board of Internal Economy.

Part of the problem with the Parliament buildings’ rehabilitation is the confusing decision-making hierarchy. The players include PSPC, the Treasury Board Secretariat, cabinet, the National Capital Commission, the Library of Parliament, the Parliamentary Protective Service and, of course, the Commons and the Senate.

A Parliamentary Buildings Advisory Council was formed in 1999 to provide a long-term view and parliamentary oversight of the renovation program and advise the public services minister. It included parliamentarians and senior Hill administrators, a former speaker, a former auditor general, and external experts. Alas, the group fizzled out under the Stephen Harper government and it has not been revived by the Justin Trudeau team.

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The Auditor General highlighted governance problems with the rehabilitation plan as far back as 1998, and again in a report in 2010. The Auditor General underlined that PSPC is split between two potentially incompatible masters: the parliamentary partners and the decisions of Treasury Board.

PSPC points to the existence of an “integrated project office,” which includes the PSPC project team, Senate and Commons representatives, and design and construction teams. Still, PSPC remains the custodian of the buildings, and the executive branch makes the final decisions.

PSPC promises that a “public outreach strategy” will be developed.

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In contrast with the Canadian process, the United Kingdom, in its ongoing restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster, which houses the parliament buildings, introduced a bill this fall to establish statutory bodies that will be responsible for the project. More than half the members of the key oversight body, the Sponsor Board of the Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster, will be made up of parliamentarians from all parties. The rest of the members are drawn from the private and public sectors with expertise in such major projects as the London Olympics and the Buckingham Palace restoration. Underneath this Sponsor Board would be a Delivery Authority to manage the actual restoration program. It would not be led or staffed by civil servants.

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Sir Winston Churchill famously said, “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” In the case of the Centre Block rehabilitation, and the larger restoration of the parliamentary precinct, we should wonder about who exactly is shaping our buildings for the future. I mean no disrespect for the fine people working in the public service, and the incredible craftspeople and architectural minds who come up with plans, but the more overarching questions about what we want from Parliament Hill should not rest either with them or with a few cabinet ministers.

Jennifer Ditchburn is editor-in-chief of Policy Options. A longer version of this article first appeared in Policy Options.View on Ottawa Citizen

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